Today, Pika launched its WARP Enterprise Appliance, which is billed as a “step up” from its popular WARP Appliance development platform.

The new appliance is designed to provide easier configuration and customization options for Asterisk VARs, system integrators and value-added SIP providers.

The company reports that Asterisk VARs and system integrators asked for stepped-up version of the WARP Appliance, configured with more software. This would reduce the time and expertise required to customize a complete solution for their customers.

PIKA responded with WARP Enterprise, an IP-PBX platform that includes a number of refinements from the standard WARP Appliance:

pre-loaded with FreePBX, the leading Asterisk GUI (graphic user interface)

pre-programmed functionality

user-friendly web interface

modules such as IVR (Additional modules can be downloaded from the FreePBX website as easily as clicking a checkbox)

“WARP Enterprise allows our customers to turn around and ship a complete PBX system to their clients in 24 hours, saving weeks and months of development effort,” said Terry Atwood, PIKA’s vice president of sales, marketing and customer care.

“PIKA’s WARP Enterprise solution had everything we were looking for,” said Jamie Love, President of UniVoIP, a business-VoIP and hosted-PBX services provider in Canada. “We wanted a robust, solid-state solution in a much smaller and more affordable footprint than is possible with a PC system, and that could reside at the client site without fear of it being copied. Familiarity was key. We have a larger enterprise solution based on Asterisk and FreePBX, so adapting to WARP Enterprise took no time at all. It was also important to us that we could integrate into a WARP system a third-party Quality of Service (QOS) solution.”

Compared to the standard WARP Appliance, WARP Enterprise requires technical capability only at the configuration and programming level without the need for code writing. However, it remains a customizable solution that allows the customer to put their brand on the system’s chassis, LCD and administration GUI.